|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA was governing the Purigere district,- on the day of the full-moon of the month Vaisâkha :- (Line 7) The forty Mahâjanas of Elpuṇuse, and the Gorava Moni, and the managers[1] of Elaṁvaḷḷi which belongs to the god Mahâdêva (Śiva) of the Mûlasthâna,[2]─ saying “ He, indeed, is able[3] to protect (the property), and to increase it,”─ gave to the honourable Gôkarṇapaṇḍita, free from all molestation, having laved his feet, eighty-five mattars of cultivable land, and six plots of garden-land, and the property of Âdityabhaṭâra, on the east side of that same god, making the boundaries to be on the east, the . . . . . field ; on the south, the cultivable land of the god ; on the west, a stone that was (then) set up ; and, on the north, the field of Kâlabe(?). (L. 17) Let the Goravas who manage this property be such as keep unbroken the vow of continence ; the Goravas of this community shall reject those who are wanting in continence. The honourable paṇḍit[4] put this precept into (the form of) a writing on stone, and set it up. (L. 20) To him who protects this religious grant, there shall accrue the reward of performing an aśvamêdha-sacrifice ; to him who (even) thinks of destroying it, there shall attach the guilt of slaying a Brâhmaṇ ! (L. 21) Nâgadêva was the president of the meeting in the matter of this religious grant.
This inscription was brought to notice and edited by me in 1883, in the Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 215 ff., from an ink-impression obtained in 1882. A lithograph of it was not given then. And, for that and other reasons, it is now re-edited. The collotype which accompanies the present revised version of the record, is from an ink-impression which Mr. Cousens was good enough to obtain for me in 1898, the original impression having suffered some damage and become unsuitable for reproduction.[5] Sirûr is a village about sixteenth miles west-by-north from Nawalgund, the head-quarters ofthe Nawalgund tâluka of the Dhârwâr district. The Indian Atlas sheet No. 41 (1852) shews it as ‘Serroor.’ And the Map of the Dhârwar Collectorate (1874) shews it as ‘Siroor.’ The record gives its name in the older form of Śrivûra, which may possibly be a mistake for Śrîvûra, with the long î. And the purport of it places Sirûr in the Beḷvola three-hundred district. The inscription is on a stone tablet somewhere on the south of the hûḍe or village-bastion at Sirûr. I have no information as to whether there are any sculptures at the top of the stone.─ The writing covers an area about 3’ 7” broad by 3’ 3” high. The extant portion of it is in a fairly good state of preservation, and can be read without any uncertainty, throughout. But, before it came to notice at all, a portion of it had been broken away and lost at the upper left-hand corner, in consequence of which there is missing a part of the text ranging from fifteen or sixteen aksharas in line 1, to one akshara in line 7. And, since the time when the original impression was obtained by me, some damaged has been done to the lower left-hand corner, whereby we have lost one complete akshara at the beginning of lines 22, 23, and 24.─ The characters are Kanarese, boldly formed and well executed. They contrast rather curiously with those of the Nîlgund inscription, edited in Vol. VI. above, p. 98 ff., which are of a much more square and upright
__________________________ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
